Corn is an important crop and is a primary food source in many areas of the world. The methods of biotechnology have been applied to corn for improvement of agronomic traits and the quality of the product. One such agronomic trait is increased yield.
Increased yield may be achieved in transgenic plants by the expression of a transgene capable of providing such increased yield. The expression of transgenes in plants may be influenced by many factors, such as the regulatory elements used in the transgene cassette, the chromosomal location of the transgene insert, the proximity of any endogenous regulatory elements close to the transgene insertion site, and environmental factors such as light and temperature. For example, there may be a wide variation in the overall level of transgene expression or in the spatial or temporal pattern of transgene expression between similarly-produced events. For this reason, the performance of a single given transformation event can vary. The identification of transformation events conferring beneficial characteristics can therefore represent a significant undertaking.